


Need the Cold (to Know How to be Warm)

by BlackEyedGirl



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Id Fic, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 03:31:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackEyedGirl/pseuds/BlackEyedGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are worse places to be than trapped out in the cold with your team. Clint has been to more than a few of them. This is better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Need the Cold (to Know How to be Warm)

**Author's Note:**

> I started this for the cliche challenge at fan_flashworks, but RL work got in the way first. Huddling for warmth is still (one of) my favourite(s).

If he had been warm enough to speculate, Clint would have bet on Tony being the first to break. If it had been just the two of them, Natasha and Clint would have moved already, though they wouldn't have called it breaking. In mixed company, they're not so familiar, and this is a full team fuck-up, which is about as mixed as company gets. 

Initially they had just been running for cover from the falling snow and whoever had tech sophisticated enough to knock Tony and the jet from the sky. It was only when they realised that they weren’t shifting this stuff overnight that the mood had changed. Steve had gone to sit against the farthest wall of the cave while the others lay down around the fire Natasha built. They’re still blocked in by about twenty tons of snow, so the fire isn’t doing much. What they had been able to grab from the jet amounts to the weapons and a few of the survival packs. They’re probably not going to die but it’s not comfortable either.

Clint doesn’t lose too many bets, so Tony is the one to call over, "If I promise I’m not hitting on you, would you maybe slide this direction? Before I start to lose feeling in parts of me that I'd prefer attached. Again, no innuendo I swear." There's a hint of a leer in his expression, but Clint thinks it's more instinctual than planned. Tony is the least equipped to deal with the cold, now that he's climbed out of the wreck of the suit. He's starting to look a little pale around the lips.

Clint lifts his head to look at Natasha, who is the probable recipient of Tony’s question. She raises one eyebrow.

Clint is still a little surprised by how well Natasha and Tony get along when she's not threatening to kill him. He doesn't know what happened in California but somehow she came back cursing Stark's name and nursing a protective streak for him a mile wide.

Natasha sighs and flips her blanket off her body. She crosses the gap between her and Tony in a jump and settles down crossways against his stomach, covered by the blanket again within the same movement.

Then she looks at Clint. "What are you doing all the way over there?"

It's not that Natasha doesn't have a sense of humour, it's just that not everyone knows it’s there. Clint does. He shrugs. "Fine, fine." He tries his best to reach the two of them without disturbing the blanket wrapped around his body. It doesn't quite work, and by the time he's alongside Natasha he feels much colder than when he started. Clint looks over his shoulder at Tony, a chill weight at his back. "Your hot-ness has been massively overstated."

Tony makes a face. "Yeah, well, bad circulation." He taps the echoing plate of the reactor, glowing through his thin shirt.

Clint hadn’t thought that through, didn’t mean to be shitty about it, so he backs more firmly against Tony's chest. Natasha drops right to lean her head on Clint's side.

Tony allows one sound of quiet, sharp surprise. He rests his free hand lightly onto Clint's shoulder, not blocking the range of motion. He doesn't feel so cold now.

The others don't move. Granted, Clint doesn't know what he would do if Hulk decided to join them for team cuddle time, and Thor doesn't seem to feel any kind of cold. Cap just sits there, the farthest out from the fire, and doesn't come closer at all. Maybe he thinks he's on lookout, though personally Clint had assumed that was why Bruce was still hulked out, filling the space between the team and the compacted snowfall. It leaves just the three of them, the regular human ones, squeezed up tight together. The faint light Tony is giving off belies that idea, but he’s pressing up against Clint and Natasha as though he needs them there. Steve still doesn’t move.

Clint doesn't have time for team politics right now. He pushes his bow into a better position for an easy grab; checks that Natasha's still alert enough by poking her with his toes; gets punched in the arm for his troubles; and then falls into a light sleep.

He wakes up in the second between Hulk starting to turn back and Bruce wondering where he is. Clint murmurs, "Come over here, doc, before you lose a toe." He rolls out from under the blanket and makes room for Bruce to climb into the warm space beside Tony and Natasha.

Clint tries to struggle onto his feet, feeling his teeth threaten to chatter. Thor stands up.

"Hey, no," Clint protests. "I'll take this watch."

Thor shakes his head. “I am not tired. And I am not affected by the cold as mortals are.” He puts one big hand on Clint's shoulder and nudges him back down beside Bruce. Thor unclasps his cloak and lays it over the four of them. Asgardians, apparently, know how to dress for the weather because Bruce just sighs in relief, turns his body towards Tony, and falls asleep. Bruce is normally a light sleeper, but when he has just turned back he tends to go dead to the world as soon as they hit safety. This is safe, apparently. Clint doesn’t think they’re quite there yet somehow, but he guesses it could be worse.

Tony looks at Clint over Bruce's mess of hair. "I wouldn't fight it." He nods his head towards Thor. “He’s stubborn and he carries a hammer bigger than your head. Go back to sleep.”

Clint has spent enough time cold that he doesn’t turn down the chance to be warm. Thor is sitting where Hulk used to be, and there’s about the same chance of someone getting past him. They’re definitely not going to manage it in the split second it’ll take Clint and Natasha to fully wake up and fire the nearest weapon.

The next time Clint wakes up, it’s because Tony’s talking. “Cap, will you just... _Steve_.”

Steve’s answer, when it comes, is much closer than the last time Clint saw him. “What?”

“You’re shivering.” Tony says. “Cold. Iced up. Not things we encourage in a post-twenty-twelve Cap.”

“I’m fine.”

“Maybe. But you’d be better if you were over here. Look, even _Clint_ is here, and he’s-.”

“He’s what?” Clint asks, curious enough that he doesn’t stop himself interrupting them.

“Put it this way,” Tony says, “this is about four more people in your personal space than I thought you were comfortable with.”

That’s not completely an overstatement, but Clint thinks he gets a pass for near-hypothermia. Plus this is his team, and they’ve had weirder days.

“And anyway,” Tony says, “Steve, I don’t care if you kick, or freak out in your sleep and try to strangle me, or...” He trails off.

There’s a tentative brush of finger tips over the back of Clint’s neck. Steve has good reach. 

“I’m not a huge fan of the ice,” Steve says. His voice is muffled against Tony’s shoulder.

“I know,” Tony says. “We’ll sort it out in the morning. Catch some sleep first.” Tony goes quiet and stays that way, his breathing evening out as it stirs over Clint’s hair. Bruce snores a little, but he’s so closely pressed against Tony that it’s hardly audible.

Clint gives it another twenty minutes, until he can tell that the sun is just getting set to rise. He rolls loose of the cape and crosses over to Thor. “Really my turn this time.”

“If you are sure,” Thor says, rubbing his eyes. He’s not one for mornings. He sprawls out in the space Clint left and some more space besides. 

Clint sits at the covered cave entrance and braces his bow on his knees. 

He risks a quick glance behind him. Natasha smiles at him, still using Tony as a pillow; the others are all asleep. Steve’s arm is tight across Tony and Bruce, knuckles pushed against Thor’s elbow. 

The blue morning light filters through the snow, getting brighter. Clint looks at the way the snow is being disturbed. “Guys? Might be time to back a little further away.”

Before they can manage that, a hole forms and something small and metallic wheels its way down the steep tunnel in the snow. Clint meets the camera eyes of the little robot. “Hi?”

Agent Hill’s voice is fed through the speakers. “Barton. Do I want to know?”

“Good morning to you too. You all planning to get us out of here any time soon?”

Tony calls, “And did you disable the EMP shooting things? Because some of us don’t appreciate being turned off in mid air.”

The four of them in the plane and the one of them shrouded in lightning hadn’t much appreciated that either, but Clint doesn’t comment. Tony had aimed his fall the same direction as the crashing plane, losing pieces of the suit as he went. It still hadn’t been their most traumatic landing, though obviously Steve hadn’t liked it much.

“We’ve dealt with the hostiles,” Hill says.

“And you came for us _last_?” Tony asks.

There is a pointed quality in her silence. Clint is pretty sure there’s a familiar glare to go along with it. 

“More pertinently,” Bruce says, “please tell me someone brought clothes.”

Something rolls down the snow tunnel and lands with a thud. No one can accuse SHIELD of being ill-prepared. Clint tosses the bundle towards Bruce. 

“Back away from the cave opening,” Hill says. “We’re going to dig you out.”

Clint backs away. 

“Breakfast?” Thor asks. 

A thermos rolls down, and then another. It’s not exactly a cooked breakfast, but Clint will settle for coffee. They are followed swiftly by chocolate, which cheers Steve up. That man has a terrifying metabolism. 

Tony is making cooing noises at the robot between gulps of the coffee. It looks a little militarised for a Stark design, but the relationship between Tony and SHIELD has been friendlier lately. He might have given them one to play with. 

Bruce is dressed now, fighting with Tony over that thermos of coffee. Steve is trying to mediate, while Thor is giving advice on how to win the bout. Clint is warm enough to speculate now, but this one is too close to call. 

Natasha takes a more sedate sip from the thermos Clint did not see her snatching, and then offers it to him. Clint drinks a mouthful and passes it back again. He sits beside her against the wall of the cave, balances his bow on his knees, and watches their rescue progress.


End file.
